Shirt For Thought
by neronero
Summary: A bet on which of L's two successors would find a Death Note first. When Mello wins, what could he possibly demand from Near? yaoi/shounen ai one-shot. complete.


"You're only trying to distract me because you want to be the first to catch Kira," Near pointed out with a glare, one finger twirling a lock of semi-curled white hair while the other carefully lined up all of the dice so all of the dots lined up respectively.

Mello smiled a rather amoral smile, one that may have been better suited to the man-person-demon-thing they were hunting down. Well, trying to capture. Mello would say something like "hunting down," but Near preferred a less emotional approach. Still, though… that smile.

Near continued to glare outward from the square of dice he'd built around himself. He kept accidentally going back to the black one - the one with the skull and crossbones where the one dot should have been, wondering if the little guy was better suited to Mello than to Kira. He was rooting for Mello, because he was fairly certain that if Mello and Kira ever met, Kira would lose on the contest of maniacal smiles. And as the culprit was obviously very confident in himself, Near smiled at the thought of how big a bruise his ego would suffer.

The smile was faint - there and then gone again - but Mello still noticed it. "See," he said with that same maniacal smile still plastered on his face, "I knew you were happy to see me."

Choosing not to respond, the white haired boy simply continued to study his Mello-die. He considered using the white pain the had left over from painting his figurines to paint Mello-yellow-style hair on the thing, as a tribute to the fact that his counterpart's smile was quite possibly the scariest thing on earth.

"Come on," Mello said. He'd been leaning in the doorway, clad in nothing but a pair of leather pants and a laptop bag strung across his shoulder. Near hadn't even noticed and Mello wasn't even wearing shoes. "Admit it; you miss me. In fact, you can't complete this investigation without me."

Mello pushed away from the door frame and walked into the room, body moving with the grace of a large feline; quick, capable, and deadly. Near, of course, did not notice.

Near set the Mello-die atop the highest tower of his newly structured dice-castle before looking up at the approaching Mello. "The members of the SPK are going to be in here momentarily." Near eyed the blonde-haired orphan with suspicious eyes as the older male brought his bare foot close to the building blocks of his dice-castle. If he knocked them down, Near was going to ignore him for the next hour while he put them all back together.

"Yeah, yeah," Mello scoffed. He was seriously considering the idea of knocking down Near's castle in the hope that Near would pay less attention to it and more attention to him, but past experience had taught him that this was a rather horrible idea. Instead, he simply waited for the younger of the two to continue.

"I'll convince them not to shoot you when they get in here."

Tactful, emotionless Near. Didn't he realize that Mello had something up his sleeve? Or was that exactly what he realized, and was simply waiting for Mello to get on with it?

"They're probably tied up at the moment."

"Oh?" Near picked up the black Mello-die and pressed it to his lips. He was becoming more like L every day. The blonde haired one would have scoffed and kicked over the toy-toting idiot's castle for sure if he'd missed the realization - and sadness - that came over Near's face when he realized it, too.

Rather than pushing. Mello knelt down next to his fellow orphan and let out a dramatic sigh. "Matt and I may have, you know, sedated them…"

"All of them? The SPK?"

"No. I walked right in the front door, told them I wanted to talk to you in private, and acquiesced to a strip search. Matt is down in the foyer entertaining the lot with his ability to chain smoke." Mello took a look at the watch he wasn't wearing on his wrist. "I've got about thirty minutes left before someone comes up here to make sure I didn't strangle you."

Near blinked slowly. "They let you up here for forty-five minutes without question?"

"Well, you see; I left them with a Death Note."

It was almost as if Near's legs were equipped with spring-loaded action. He sprung to his feet and hopped over his dice-castle like it was something he practiced, and headed calmly for the door, black Mello-die still in hand. He was almost through when he paused, opening the fist that housed the die so that he could examine it. If Mello had truly brought at Death Note to the compound, that meant…

Near closed his hand over the die and let his shoulders drop. He'd known that making a bet was an irrational, impulsive thing to do. Hell, Mello had been the one to suggest they make a bet to see who could capture a Death Note first. That alone should have been enough to tell him to walk away.

Near continued to examine the black die, aware of a certain level of irony that played into the fact that he was holding a symbolic Mello in his hand, and yet he was about to be the one in the palm of Mello's hand. He didn't want to think about what the older male's demands would be, didn't want to think about having to give up the case, or work under the sporadic impulses of the second-in-line to be the new L. While he knew that together they would make an amazing team, they simply weren't equipped to deal with each other.

Or, rather, Mello was not - for whatever reason - equipped to deal with him. Ever since they'd hit puberty, Mello had turned from bold to rash and impatient. He never kept his temper around Near for long. He always stormed off after having picked a fight he couldn't win. It had always kept them from being close.

Turning around, Near eyed Mello. "And the terms of its surrender to the SPK?"

That maniacal grin only grew more daunting. Mello started to respond, paused, and then proceeded to drop into a nearby chair. When he was sufficiently comfortable - leaned back, legs over one of the arms, and his hands behind his head - he said, "Your shirt."

"I beg your pardon?" Near almost gaped, but instead stared quizzically at the die in his hand. His shirt?

"As the terms of the Death Note's surrender to the SPK, I demand your shirt."

He said it so calmly, but Near just couldn't hang onto the sentence. His shirt? Mello wanted his _shirt _as …

"Is that _part_ of the terms of the notebook's surrender, or is that _all_ of it?"

Mello let out an impatient sigh and sat up proper in the chair. "That's it. Now, hurry up and hand it over before I change my mind." He extended his arm, palm up, to receive the shirt.

Trying not to overanalyze the situation, Near unbuttoned his shirt and slipped out of it while walking over to where Mello sat, close to his dice-caste in the large, comfy chair that one of the SPK members felt necessary to put in the room. He figured that when they left him to investigate on his own, they were secretly hoping he'd do something normal - like sleep. Since they couldn't raise suspicion by putting in a bed, they settled for a nice chair.

It was a kind gesture, though he didn't care for being treated like a child. And when they left, he did - once in a while - take a nap in the chair Mello sat in.

Near placed the shirt, neatly folded, into the outstretched palm of Mello's hand and waited for his would-be friend to make the next move. His brain was going a million miles an hour trying to analyze the angle. It simply wasn't logical for the blonde haired boy to demand a _shirt_ as payment for the debt Near owed due to the bet. It made no sense.

"Mello?" Near's voice came out stronger than he thought it would. He'd noticed Mello's missing shirt and shoes when he'd entered, but he'd deduced that the missing articles of clothing were nothing to be worried about. Now, he wasn't so sure.

"Yes, Near?"

"Were you in need of a shirt?" Near's eyebrows furrowed when Mello's raised in question. "It doesn't add up that you would need a shirt that badly that you'd take it as payment for the bet we made."

Mello blinked and then laughed. "Oh, right." The maniacal grin faded into an almost friendly smile. "I just wanted to win, really. I wasn't all that worried about what I won, so long as I beat you."

"So why'd you pick my shirt?"

"Because I miss the way you smell."


End file.
